| Lin Yutang is a distinguished writer,translator,and also one of the eminent self-translators in the history of Chinese modern literature.Although scholars in translation field pay more attention to the translations of Lin,there is little research on Lin's self-translations.Self-translation,as a special kind of translation behavior,has been marginalized in translation field studies for ages.It is not until the 1970 s that translation studies achieve a new breakthrough,which focus on the interaction between translation and extra linguistic factors out of translation like social,cultural,historical and political factors,and then self-translation has been gradually brought into focus and warmly discussed in the translation field.Justa Holz-Manttari's translational action theory was a main theory of Functional Approaches appeared in the 1970 s.According to translational action theory,translation is redefined.Translational action is a term with a broader meaning,which covers all forms of intercultural transfer,including translation,adaption,compilation and the actions which do not have source texts.Translational action theory no longer treats translation as merely the conversion of language codes,but as a process of interaction in which time,place and other factors are considered in the translational action.Moreover,the roles of all participants(initiator,translator,producer,user,message receiver)are analyzed.The thesis makes a case study on Lin's self-translations from the perspective of translational action theory,and analyzes Lin's self-translations mainly from four aspects: self-translation is regarded as an intentional,interpersonal,intercultural,and text-processing action.The author aims to find out the characteristics of Lin's self-translations,how Lin deals with his self-translations,and the reason why he chooses to do it.Lin acts as the initiator,the source-text producer and the translator of his essays at the same time,through the analysis of the examples selected from The Little Critic: The Bilingual Essays of Lin Yutang,it can be found that Lin makes great changes or adjustments to his self-translations,besides some translation techniques adopted by him like omission,addition,and substitution.The thesis analyzes these great adjustments from lexical,syntactical,and textual level.Nevertheless,these adjustments made in Lin's self-translations are not at random because he regards self-translation as a “text-processing” interaction in view of social,cultural,and economic backgrounds,etc.Lin aims to transmit the information which is accepted and get the best communicative effect in the target culture.In other words,it is also clear that he takes the audience-oriented approach.The thesis draws four major findings: Firstly,considering the social background,Lin adopts flexible translation techniques such as addition,omission and substitution to deal with his self-translations,focuses on transmitting the main content and the spirit of the source text instead of word-for-word translation.He also uses flexible structures in his self-translations and the self-translations show a typical Chinese characteristic which increases the readability.Secondly,the translator is the expert in the translation interaction,and the source-text is just the information offer used by the translator.It is necessary for translators to decide how to deal with their translations according to different target-text readers.Thirdly,translator produces adequate message transmitter in translational action,and he/she plays a crucial role in the translation interaction.Therefore,the translator is not the “servant” or “minor part” of the source-text producer and we need to endow the translator more freedom and greater creative space.Fourthly,translational action theory enlarges the meaning of translation,and it regards translation as a dynamic system.As far as the author is concerned,it is necessary for scholars to have an open mind towards translation studies and to do the translation research from a broader perspective. |
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